Disguised
by goldleaves
Summary: "There's not much you can buy for 18p- if you're lucky and do not care about the amount of sugar you're about to eat, 18p is a feast at the pick-and-mix section of any good sweet store" Jasper/Bella - Oneshot


18p.

My monetary possessions could fit into the palm of my hand.

18p.

There's not much you can buy for 18p- if you're lucky and do not care about the amount of sugar you're about to eat, 18p is a feast at the pick-and-mix section of any good sweet store or corner shop. But there are not any such places in the middle of nowhere.

I was surrounded by sheep, grass, trees and oh look, cows.

Nothing, absolutely nothing.

How did I get here? I have no clue. Actually that's a lie, I knew exactly how I got to the middle of the Lake District National Park, in England. It had all started out years ago when I lived in Forks, Washington.

What can I say about Forks? it was green and wet. What can I say about England? It is green and wet.

When I first moved to Forks, I was young and impressionable, and I fell in love. With a vampire. That's right I said Vampire. And it was great, minding you forgot about the almost constant near-death experiences, and then they left and for such a long time I floated in an almost comatose state, uncaring to the world.

But then I met Jacob, or Jake as he liked to be called and everything got better, I started to live again, and everything went normal again, well as normal as you can get when you're best friend turns out to be a werewolf and there is a psychopathic vampire out to kill you.

But as I said, normal. I adapted, I lived.

I finished high school and I went to University. Specifically the University of York to study History. Why York? I wanted to get away from the memories and the strangeness of living with super-natural creatures. And the pack thought it would be a good idea, get me out of the way to lure Victoria out.

Except that it didn't work. They didn't catch Victoria.

But living and studying in York was amazing. I loved the fact that I could walk around a city that had been around longer than America had been created. It had so much history, so much culture. I loved being able to wake up in the morning and see York Minster towering above the city and I loved walking along the Shambles; it was amazing, like a medieval village right in the middle of a modern town with narrow and winding paved street and churches tucked into corners that you wouldn't see until you were right in front of them.

I loved York, and I loved the friends I made, and I loved what I was studying - it was so different from American History. I fell in love with England and with the BBC; I would watch every single episode of Doctor Who on Saturday nights and I would listen to the Top 40 on Sunday Afternoons on BBC Radio 1. I fell in love with my new life.

But then she came for me; Victoria. I started getting jumpy when I couldn't get contact with anyone in the pack, It got even worse when the death figures for the York area increased dramatically. And then it got even worse when one of my friends; Sarah, disappeared.

I ran, I left York - tried to keep my scent covered with disgusting perfumes. I dyed my hair blond to match the bimbo look that I had seen way too often, and applied rigorous amounts of fake tan and I travelled to Liverpool. We had gone there on a trip to the Liverpool Slavery Museum, and I had loved the buildings that had originated in the Industrial Revolution era; great towering brick buildings on the waterfront, long abandoned but not destroyed because of their heritage status.

I picked up the harsh scouse accent and I got a job and an apartment under the name of Katie Connolley. No one suspected a thing, I made new friends and I grew to love the city, and learnt to avoid specific areas, but my life moved on.

And then two years later, she found me. She had found me working in a dock-side cafe at Albert's Dock and she had sat at a table staring at me, watching and grinning like a smug cat, and so when my shift was over I ran again, out the back door, through the Tate gallery and the Beatle's Museum. I didn't stop at my apartment, I went straight to the closest station - Liverpool Central. I had two ten pound notes in my purse and thirty pounds on a card and I immediately bought a ticket for the first train that left the station, to Ormskirk.

Once I arrived at Ormskirk I noted that there was another train at the station, and walking down the platform towards it, I wondered how far behind me she was, and as I looked at the others on the train I wondered what my life would have been like if I had never moved to Forks? Perhaps I would be married by now, somewhere in Phoenix or Florida After an excruciatingly slow journey I made it to Preston. I bought three tickets in Preston, all for trains leaving within half an hour of my arrival and five minutes of each other.

I had time, so breaking my last five pound note I bought a Cadbury's chocolate bar, another thing why I love England; amazing chocolate, and a drink. Stuffing them into my bag I went to the toilets and changed my appearance. Living in Liverpool I had become accustomed to always carrying a jumper and an extra shirt with me, just in case the rain got heavier than it normally was. I changed from my black waitress shirt into a blue one, and I pulled my fake blond hair out of the characteristic bee-hive shape, a very popular shape in Liverpool, into a normal pony tail, hiding my very obvious darker roots, and I slipped the purple hoody over my head.

I was ready.

Leaving my old shirt and cardigan in one of the bins, and after spraying myself with yet another horribly strong perfume that I had found in the bottom of my bag, I looked at the time and then at the three tickets in my hand, one was to Inverness, one to Liverpool and one was to York. I chose the York train.

Settling into my seat, I pulled the hood over my head to make me look as if I was asleep and then the train was moving. I showed the conductor my ticket as he moved past, and then I took to staring out of the window. The ticket said I was going to York, but I wasn't, I got off at a station in the middle of no where and I abandoned the tickets on the train, as well as my hoody and then made my way out of the small village and into the country side.

At first I walked along the man road until I found a public footpath along the fields and I made my may along it. I sometimes came across hikers and walkers and shared smiles with them, and as night fell I found a place to sleep and I ate my chocolate bar and drank all of my water. The next morning I disposed of my rubbish and returned to another path that promised to take me to Windermere.

And so here I was, in the middle of no where, still miles, and hours away form Windermere, counting my fortune and she was catching up on me. She was following me, I knew it - every time I looked back I saw a flash of red, she was chasing me; playing some twisted game. At any minute I knew that she could get bored of following at a human pace and kill me before I blink.

I kept walking, hoping that somehow I could get to a town before she got bored, maybe I could get myself arrested, then I would be safe, for a while anyway. And then it started to rain and I was left walking without a jumper through the harsh rains and chill early spring winds.

Suddenly I heard another sound, the sound of air moving extremely fast and I knew that she had finally gotten bored and she was close, I could feel something behind me but when I looked there was nothing, however when I turned to face forward again, she was there.

Smiling, she was smiling at me - and her eyes were black, she was hungry and I was her meal. I wanted to run, but I couldn't, she was gripping my arm too tight, and she was moving closer and closer, and then she bit me.

And it hurt, and I screamed. It hurt so much - but I could not concentrate on the pain, everything was going dark, and then she was gone and I could hear the sounds of a fight, I could hear her scream and the sound of her body being torn to pieces and being lit on flames, and I could smell a sweet perfume on the air.

Then suddenly I was being picked up, lifted into some one's arms and they were running, fast. He was talking to me, telling me to relax, that it would be okay, I could not see his face, but he sounded familiar, he sounded safe and he knew my name, he called me Bella.

And then the darkness and the pain took over and I could not concentrate any more. After three days and six hours, and thirty seven minutes - I had counted - It stopped. The pain stopped, my heart stopped, my life … stopped.

I was a vampire, something that once I had wished to be, and for almost six years run from. I was a vampire, and Victoria was dead. I felt soft hands on my hand, and a gentle, and familiar voice telling me that I was safe, that it was okay and I opened my eyes and I saw him.

He had golden eyes, and his curly golden hair reflected the sun, making it seem like he had a halo, his jaw was strong and determined and all of his body was littered with scars.

"Jasper"

He smiled at me and explained what had happened, and where I was. He explained that he was alone, and that the others were still in America, how out of guilt he had begun to track Victoria again, and had tracked her to England. He told me how he bought a house in the Lake District because it was so isolated, and how he had Alice had parted, and how Alice had called him saying that I was heading his way with Victoria on my trail. He told me all about the rest of the family and I noticed that it no longer hurt to hear their names, instead it brought out feelings of nostalgia and sorrow - I missed them,all of them - including Edward, but I no longer loved him as I did, so completely and obsessively.

Jasper took me out hunting and gave me some new, comfortable clothes. I looked in the mirror to find that my hair had returned to it's original colour and that my eyes were the dark crimson of a new born. I could feel Jasper's presence in the house, keeping me calm, and I was thankful for that - because I could feel the emotions in the corner of my mind, waiting to take over and make me uncontrollable, and I knew that without him there I would be a complete emotional and violent mess.

Well, more than I was already. It seemed that little things make me go ballistic, and destroy things before Jasper could calm me and I would get really embarrassed for whatever I had done. It took almost a year before I was stable again, and then I noticed Jasper more. He was always there, patient and watching over me. He was protective of me but he did not limit me or forbid me from dong things, he was supportive and amazing, even when my gift started to appear.

It was not really a gift, not like Jasper's or Edward's. Just an uncanny ability to disappear, and to hide. Jasper said that it was because I had spent so many years running and hiding, and disappearing into plain sight, he was excited about my gift, knowing that if something happened to him I would be able to survive. However it annoyed him when I used it to sneak up on him, without him noticing me, and surprise him. It always lead to his instincts kicking in and us fighting.

He said he hated going back to the way he was, but I knew that he needed it, he needed to bring the two sides of his personality together, he had to bring his Dr. Jekyll - his sweet and calm natured personality, together with his Mr. Hyde - his ruthless and war-created, instinct driven personality. It was the only way that he would be able to cope.

I was trying to help him, and he hated that - he hated how he needed help, and he never wanted to admit that he did need it, the thought it would be showing a weakness. Every time after he would beat me royally he would go into the fields and forests for days and return depressed. He needed the help, but he did not want to change, he was afraid that if he did he would totally become his Dr. Jekyll without any trace of his Mr. Hyde personality.

But I knew differently, whenever we were fighting I knew that he always held back, he never fought me as he could, and I knew that was because he was not turning into some crazy monster, he was just more in touch with his instinctive side.

We continued that way for another three years, until during one fight everything changed. He had trapped me underneath him, as he always did and I had expected him to leave for another few days, as he always did, when he looked at me with his black eyes and suddenly I was hit with emotions, hunger, lust and love. He had pinned me to the ground, barely an inch between us and I felt the urge to get closer to him, to feel his skin on mine, to feel him within me; controlling me, but also protecting me.

I wanted to be his.

I wanted him to be mine.

I wanted him and I needed him and then he kissed me.

His kiss was sweet but spicy, and I could taste the deer he had ate earlier, woodsy and fresh, it tasted of freedom and long sun-filled runs through forest and fields, and he tasted like power and comfort, like a summer day when the clouds finally clear to reveal a beautiful blue sky and a bright warm sun, and a soft cool breeze that picked leaves from the trees and made them dance in the sky. He tasted like home.

I could feel one of his strong, but soft hands clutching my hair, tangling it with his long fingers, pulling my face closer to him. I could feel his other arm snaked around my waist, gripping me protectively, pulling me closer to him, as if there was some distance between us at all. I could feel the scars on his chest, his defined muscles through his shirt as I clutched it, trying to somehow destroy the nano-meters between us.

He was Jasper, and I was Bella. In that moment we forgot about the past, about our respective heartbreaks, we concentrated on each other.

And that was how I got to be standing here, looking over the lake district, as the sun sets, counting the last links to my human life.

18p.

My monetary possessions could fit into the palm of my hand.

18p.

There's not much you can buy for 18p- if you're lucky and do not care about the amount of sugar you're about to eat, 18p is a feast at the pick-and-mix section of any good sweet store or corner shop. But there are not any such places in the middle of nowhere, which was good because I didn't want sweets or sugar.

I didn't need wealth, I had all that I needed, and all that I wanted.

Jasper.

So I don't need these five silver and bronze coins, they do me no good, they lend me no wealth or joy. The bronze coins had long turned green from exposure to the damp air, and the silver coins were tarnished black, but I don't care, I don't need them.

And so I throw them as hard as I can, and I watch with detached curiosity as they separate in the air and land miles apart, and I smile when I feel Jasper's arms curl around my waist, and his head rest on my shoulder,

"Ready?" he asks, and yes I am ready, ready to go to our home. I did not need wealth, or a grand home with a wall of glass, all I need I already have - Jasper.


End file.
